What is the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS)?

To be eligible for the CERS, you must meet at least one of the following:

• You had a CRA business number on September 27, 2020
• You had a payroll account on March 15, 2020, or
• You purchased a business asset and have made the election under the same asset acquisition rules as for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS)

 And you:

• are an eligible business, charity, or non-profit (see step 2)
• experienced a drop in revenue (compare your revenue during the pandemic with your revenue from a previous period)
• have a qualifying property and eligible expenses

The amount you can claim of your expenses—your rent subsidy rate—is based on the revenue drop you experienced between either the corresponding months of 2019 and 2020 that relate to the claim period you're applying for, or by comparing January and February 2020 to the months of 2020 that relate to the claim period.

This revenue drop is then scaled to calculate your rent subsidy rate.

Example: Your business revenue for September and October 2019 was $10,000 and $12,000, respectively. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your business lost a significant amount of revenue, making only $5000 in September 2020 and $3,000 in October 2020. The rent subsidy rate is calculated by looking at the higher revenue drop between the two periods.

Comparing October 2019 to October 2020, your revenue dropped by 75%. Since your revenue dropped more than 70%, you are eligible for the maximum subsidy rate of 65%.

To easily determine your rent subsidy amount, visit the CRA website to use their subsidy calculator. Print and save these numbers, as you'll need to enter them when you apply for your subsidy. 

Note: You can currently only use the calculator for claim periods 1 to 6. More periods will be added as they become available.

Once you’ve checked that you’re eligible and calculated your subsidy amount, there are two ways to apply:

• Sign in to My Business Account
• Sign in to Represent a Client if you’re a business representative

You must submit a separate application for each claim period you’re eligible for, and your application must be filed no later than 180 days after the end of the claim period.